Natural dyes; New England wool.
I still have a few more colors in the works, but I wanted to get these up when I had the time. Check out the new colors on the Fingering Weight page. (Still to come, a hunter green, dark gray, light gray, and maybe a few more blues?).
For example - check out the Fingering Weight page to see more.
In other news, we bought a house yesterday. A whole house. With a very cool barn. And a work space for Upton Yarns. It doesn't quite feel real yet.
I'm not really a hat knitter normally, but at the good natured prodding of my friend Sarah Hunt (@fibertrek) I finally caved and knit a Bousta Beanie. (For those who, like me, have been living under a rock all summer, Bousta Beanie is a free pattern designed by Gundrun Johnston to promote the 2017 Shetland Wool Week. Apparently everyone is knitting them, and I can see why). As she usually is when it comes to all matters knitting, Sarah is absolutely right and I loved knitting my Bousta Beanie so much that I further caved to Sarah's prodding and put together a kit.
I got so excited about making the kit that I haven't actually finished mine yet - appologies for the lack of blocking, end tucking, or pom pom) .
The kit contains two, 110 yard skeins of 3-Ply Romney fingering weight, and one, 110 skein each of 3-Ply Straw's Farm Island Sheep fingering weight dyed with natural indigo in a light blue gradient and a more solid dark indigo colorway.
There is, of course, a kit bag.
The product link will go live this evening (Wednesday, September 13) at 5:00 PM. I'm stuck traveling for my "day job" again next week, though thankfully only for a few days this time. All orders placed by noon on Friday, September 15 will go out that day. All order placed after that will have to wait until Friday September 21.
My time at home was lovely and cold and way too short. It was also very productive (on the yarn front, though not on the blogging front…). I returned home to find the fleeces I sent off to the mill in the fall returned to me in the form of lovely yarn on cones. A storm of dyeing ensued. Yarn took over every available surface in the house, the bathtub was pressed into service for drip-drying, and a giant drying rack took up the prime space in front of the woodstove (much to Nell’s annoyance).
I experimented with new colors and dyed new lots of older colors (which sometimes resulted in new colors).
Above, “Light Butternut”, “Rosewood”, and “70% Cacao”. 70% Cacao is actually a fleece from one of Liberty Wool Farm’s Romney rams (he is or will be responsible for the “Romney” portion of the “Cotswold x Romney” yarn). I had his fleece spun to the same weight as my other 3-Ply fingering weight yarn.
This is “Aspen”, a lovely, lively green, but not quite the “Cress” that I was aiming for. (Natural Dyeing is not an exact science).
I am back at my “day job” on the boat. Last night we finished our transit of the Panama Canal and currently we are bound for Isla Iguana for a bit of snorkeling. As my very slow internet connection allows I will be updating the “yarn” section of this site to reflect the work of the last few weeks. In the meantime, if you would like to order any yarn, please email me at uptonyarns (at) gmail.com. My internet connection is sometimes a bit spotty on the boat, but I can usually check it at least once a day. Yarn is being shipped out in my absence.
